In the early years of the computer industry, software piracy was hardly an issue. The modest nature of software piracy during that time frame was attributable to the fact that computer systems were sold by major manufacturers with software and hardware "bundled" as one product, and further, the interaction between the hardware and software was controlled by proprietary machines specific assembly languages. The proprietary nature of competing systems prevented the bridging of software between non-compatible systems. In addition, the customers for these systems were major corporate clients having a concurrent need for significant follow-up service by the purveyor of the hardware/software system. This combination of factors created little market demand for pirated software; coupled with the potential liability under the applicable copyright laws, piracy would be highly visible and embarrassing.
As the computer industry matured, several fundamental changes in market structure developed, each diminishing the natural barriers to piracy. The first factor was the development of independent manufacturers of computer "peripheries" that entered the marketplace with "plug compatible" products for use with main-frame computers. These peripheral devices competed on price directly against the bundle systems, forcing the major manufacturers to de-couple the software from the hardware and license the software on its own. The importance and value of the software per se was instantly recognized.
Another factor was the development of open architecture operating systems. These open architecture operating systems, such as UNIX/XENIX, are increasingly found on many different manufacturers' computer hardware, and permit the use of the same commercial software on systems built by different manufacturers. This, in effect, exponentially increased the market for popular software and supported the growth of independent software companies unrestricted to a single manufacturer's hardware. With such large, distributed demand for illegally duplicated software, the economic incentive to pirate became substantial.
Software piracy may take one of two forms. The first involves the outright preparation of an illegal copy of a copyrighted software product. Software, for the most part, is packaged and sold on magnetic media; a format that is easily duplicated. The second form of piracy involves the expansion of software use beyond that expressly provided by license between the user and the software developer. For example, a software product may be licensed for a particular site, such as the licensee's headquarters building, and thereafter, the licensee provides satellite terminals at, e.g., sales offices for implementing the software product in violation of the terms of the license agreement.
To the extent that software piracy has increased as a problem in the U.S. computer industry, there have been two basic approaches for combating software piracy. The first approach involves a reliance on the copyright and trade secret laws in the United States and is implemented as an after market policing effort through both civil and criminal prosecution of the offenders. The second approach and the approach germane to the present patent application involves the creation of technical barriers to the copying and/or unauthorized use of certain software products.
The first technical barriers to software copying involved the distribution of programs embedded within the software that would defeat efforts to make a copy thereof ("copy protected"). In essence, the producer of a software product would install within the matrix of instructions separate programming statements that would prevent effective utilization of the program after copying. This approach had limited success for several reasons; it created inconveniences among authorized users and was somewhat easily defeated by maverick utility programs designed to overcome the anti-copying algorithms within the code.
For the most part, this technique has been discarded as an effective approach to prevent piracy. In general, it can be stated as a mathematical truism that efforts to prevent piracy in software terms alone are defeatable. With this prevailing understanding, a second approach is to take advantage of embedded identification coding associated with certain hardware products. For example, a computer may have a particular microprocessor that includes a serial number stored thereon. By periodically checking for the proper identification associated with that microprocessor, the system can insure that the software is being used on hardware in an authorized fashion. It has been found that hardware identification numbers provide an economic barrier that defeats software piracy to a great extent, in that the cost of defeating the piracy prevention mechanism is higher than the potential reward resulting therefrom.
Although effective for hardware with internal identification coding, no corresponding approach is available directly for hardware associated with open architecture operating systems, as these hardware products simply do not have a unique internal identification code. Efforts have been made to associate a unique identification code with particular hardware, and these include the use of ROM chips placed within the hardware. Of course, the problem with this approach is the chip and unique code are themselves portable and may be moved from machine to machine; thus, defeating the intended purpose of this approach. Moreover, the addition of external hardware with resident unique identification coding is associated with an incremental increase in cost, that must be borne by the purchase price or license expense of the software. If excessive in expense, such software piracy prevention devices will adversely impact the product's market.
An example of a product attachable to a computer system for storing unique system identification coding is distributed by [Rainbow, Inc.] and involves the placement of an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) on the parallel port of a computer used for communication with a printer. The ASIC device employs a stream cipher as a means of encryption/decryption of a stored unique identification code. This mechanism makes it extremely difficult for the pirate to learn the identification code within the ASIC chip that unlocks the otherwise difficult to penetrate software. Although useful for less expensive software, the ASIC approach requires the serialization of the software, prior to delivery from the developer. This serialization is a painstaking operation that if circumvented would defeat this entire approach.
It was with this understanding of the previous effects to defeat piracy that formed the impetus of the present invention.